Free Republic

The US has announced it will resume bilateral talks with North Korea on the reclusive nation's nuclear programme and appointed a new envoy to the communist state. Mark Toner, the state department spokesman, said on Wednesday the talks between US officials and a North Korean delegation would take place on Monday and Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting comes nearly three months after US and North Korean officials met in New York, ending a long break in direct engagement with Pyongyang. In an interview with the Russian state news agency Itar-Tass published on Wednesday, Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader,...

South Korea's foreign minister made it clear Sunday that the country does not want the six-way nuclear talks over North Korea's nuclear program to resume until the communist nation stops pushing for unacceptable preconditions. "It is not time to discuss six-way talks laden with North Korea-set preconditions," Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said in an interview with state-owned broadcaster KTV. Yu said the North is apparently attempting to use the long-stalled nuclear negotiations as a means to distract world attention away from the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March. A South Korea-led multinational probe found that the North...

Pyongyang, September 12 (KCNA) -- Sixty-three years have elapsed since the U.S. imperialists occupied south Korea in September 1945. The days of the presence of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces in south Korea are a history of blood and shocking crimes. Ever since they set foot in south Korea, the U.S. imperialists have inflicted all manner of immeasurable misfortunes and disasters upon the people there and killed innocent people at random. They brutally put down the struggle of the people in different parts of south Korea against the U.S. "military government" in October 1946 by setting in motion planes, tanks...

Japan currently has 27 Patriot anti-missile batteries deployed around the country, but they are only capable of shooting down missiles with a shorter range and slower speed than ballistic missiles. Ishiba said that although Japan is strictly limited by its post World War II constitution from using its military for offensive purposes, it is not barred from defending itself. "Japan's Self-Defense Law allows for Japan to mobilize forces when facing an urgent and unjust attack," he said. "Japan may also mobilize forces when there is a threat of attack." But until it significantly upgrades its defenses, he admitted, any realistic...